What If?
by Anastasia T Wolfe
Summary: Anna Smith is an Indonesian expat living in Australia. She works for the southern hemisphere department of S.H.E.I.L.D., and in 2012, she has a rather weird guest. Loki of Asgard has escaped Thanos's thrall after a thousand long years. He thinks he has escaped the deal with the devil, but he comes to collect. This is an alternate Avengers movie, with alternate Avengers, Aussies.
1. Chapter 1

PRELOGUE

He looked around groggily through his bloody eyes as he pulled himself up the bank and out of the water. A strange four legged beast with horns near him roared strangely as he used the Scepter to pull himself up out of the mud. He slowly stood and stretched his back, taking in the scene around him.

It was desolate, everything but the sky was colored a morbid mix of browns and yellows, even the tall beasts around him. He touched his head with his free hand and it came away covered in blood. No wonder he was a bit scatter-brained at the moment.

He pulled himself out of the small puddle of water and collapsed on the bank for a moment. The strange beasts looked at him with their beady eyes but otherwise did nothing. He tried to look away. They reminded him of something but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

"Damn," he whispered to himself.

He moved away from the dam and the strange beasts and onto the parched soil beyond. Fighting to stand, he looked north, south, east and west, shading his eyes from the pounding sun, and he only saw dirt as far as the eye could see, occasionally broken up by a scraggly greenish grey tree. And then he saw a different color in the distance, white. There was a small, white house in the distance.

He set his sights on it and trudged towards it, ripping off bits of his already shredded armor. It was hot, he felt waterlogged. He felt although he was baking alive in his own skin, and he suddenly felt very sorry for his favorite meal, broiled oxen.

They were after him. He had to keep moving.

The house which he had thought was small was actually rather big, it was the distance he trudged along the plane that made it seem small, like a point of light at the end of a long tunnel. Eventually he dragged himself up the steps of the homestead and bashed on the door.

"Help me!" a few moments later, he collapsed of exhaustion on the wooden veranda of the house.

He didn't hear the click of a 303 rifle being loaded. Neither did he hear the door squeak open. He didn't see the woman with the rifle look down at the motionless Frost Giant, and he didn't feel her kick him in the sides to see if he was really unconscious.

She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, "still blue," she grabbed at her phone and dialed a number. She spoke when it was answered, "Hey, Fel, I've either drank something I shouldn't have or there is an alien at my front door."

"Do you know where he comes from?" Felix asked her. Felix Jones was a tall man, broad and muscular. While he was in his late thirties now, he had been a peacekeeper in Timor, making a change from his usual SASR duties. That was where they had met, actually. ASIO had stiffed them both, and while she, a double agent was captured and ASIO would not authorize a rescue, Felix defied orders to get in and save her.

He was rather handsome in that Bondi boy type of way, but then again, that look was rather common, with sandy blonde hair, bright blue eyes and slightly tanned skin, he was the Aussie that should have been exported on tourism adds, but he was a soldier through and through.

She shrugged, "he came from the direction of the closest dam," she answered, "Dave the farmhand says he scared the crap out of the cows."

"I mean originally, Anna."

That was her anglicized name, Anna Smith. Vita was her real name, but when she turned on her country, she had even turned on her name. She was originally Indonesian, but her people did not take too kindly to what was considered desertion.

"Outer space," she shrugged, "look, I don't know."

"Considering there are no universities in this part of the country, I doubt it was a college prank, and besides," he flicked the funny looking spear with the blue rock inlaid in the blade, "this looks and feels pretty real to me. Where did you put him?"

"He's in the cool room," Anna answered. Felix gave her a look which conveyed to her that he thought she was being stupid, "what, it is the only room I can lock from the outside."

Felix sighed, "Finally, you have done something that makes sense."

She waited until Felix had turned, and then, rather childishly, she stuck her tongue out at him. While she owed Felix Jones her life, sometimes she really hated him. Felix had a rather 'holier than thou' attitude, perhaps it was because he was in the most elite special forces in the entire world. Then again, Anna's sister was an engineer, and she wasn't that cocky. Perhaps it was a man thing.

The cool room was really more of a walk-in freezer. Anna ran a working farm, and as a result, she thought it would be better if she butchered her own meat, and sold what she could to the surrounding farms. When she opened the door, the first thing they saw was the hanging carcasses of cattle, sheep and pork. This was also where she stored her ice cream, and most importantly in this country, her beer.

The guy that she had brought in looked surprisingly better, leaning against the metal wall. He wasn't blue anymore, rather humanoid looking with a thin face, matted dark hair and piercing green eyes.

He looked directly up at Felix and Anna, "As much as I enjoy the company of the dead, I would like to come out now."

Felix cocked the rifle, "who are you?"

He continued to stare up at them, "who are you?" he countered.

"I asked first," Felix narrowed his eyes.

Anna rolled her eyes, "put down the rifle, Fel," she sighed, "sorry about that. He likes threatening people with big guns," she stepped out from behind Felix. He did as he was told, unhappily, but he did it nonetheless.

"Who are you?" she asked, "what are you?"

He sighed, "I do not believe that I know any more."

Anna knelt down and held out a hand to her prisoner, "I am Anna," she told him with a rather stiff smile, "what is your name?"

"I am Loki of Asgard."


	2. Chapter 2

*1* I am Loki of Asgard.

Frank Wilson worked his farm in the outer regions of NSW the way he had always done. He mustered his cattle on horseback and ploughed the same way. He employed several farmhands and worked both stock and crops. All he needed was to stay out of the limelight for the rest of his life.

Wilson sat on the veranda looking out onto the sunset with a cold glass of lemonade in his hand. While he tried to emulate his old life as much as possible, he had to admit, electricity was useful, if only for keeping drinks cold. After a hard day farming the almost desiccated land, all he wanted was to drink something cold and tasty and watch the sunset, alone.

Wilson was far taller than he used to be; now he was six foot one, dark hair and bright blue eyes. The years farming this land had tanned his skin to a strange shade of nutty brown. He was big and muscle bound, but he had to be to crank start the steam engine that provided him with his hot water and sometimes ran the saw bench out the back. It was the simple life, but after all that he had seen, all he wanted was the simple life.

The phone was ringing inside, so he put his drink on the wooden step and went back inside, shutting the screen door behind him. He didn't like flies, especially inside the house.

The phone was in the entry hallway and he waved away his housekeeper as the mousy haired woman scampered to the phone. He smiled at her as he picked up the cradle of the vintage telephone.

"Roasted Cow Homestead, Wilson here," he answered in the formula way.

_"__Wilson, we need you to come in,"_ he didn't quite recognize the voice at first, but as he thought about it a little more, it was Kate, Kate Johnson.

"I am not coming in," Wilson said forcefully, "I spent too many years as the Unknown Soldier."

There was nothing but static on the other end of the line for a moment, _"Frank, I need you to come in. Smith and Jones have brought in a . . . foreigner . . . and I don't know what to do."_

"Leave him in a room with Kelly and watch him twitch until he dies," Wilson answered back stoically, "leave me alone. I want no part in _any _war ever again."

_"__I don't think you understand just how serious this is, Wilson,"_ Kate said with an air of superiority like his first CO did, and it made him very angry.

"They're all serious, Kaitlin," Wilson snapped, "leave me out."

_"__When I say 'foreign', Frank, I mean really foreign. He's not even from this planet," _she insisted, _"please, for Jack."_

Jack's real name was Henry Johnson, her great grandfather. Jack had been the one to pull Frank from the firing line in the Great War. That was where Jack died, dragging his best friend's ass through the mud with his guts falling out. He had never got a chance to repay Jack for saving his life. He owed Jack, and Jack's children, grandchildren and great grandchildren had inherited it. He owed them, because Jack saved him, he never got to see his own son.

"Alright, Kaitlin," he sighed, "I'll come as a favor to Jack, but after this, I'm done."

After he had awoken for real and his wounds patched, he had been bound and gagged then shoved into some sort of vehicle for transport to somewhere else just as dusty. The woman drove, occasionally glancing across at him in the passenger seat with his hands cuffed firmly to the handhold above the door.

Her male friend followed behind, keeping a close eye on them in case he tried anything funny.

They had not spoken since she revealed her name to him, and after all he had been through, he was not even sure if he had really escaped capture or this was another sick mind game.

"You look like crap," Anna said unexpectedly. Loki looked up at her although he was almost willing her to melt through the car seat, "you don't smell very good either."

"Where am I?" he asked finally. To say the least, he was confused. He had gone from one second surrounded by stars and running for his life, pursued by the hounds of Hel themselves.

He had initially been glad to feel the sunlight on his skin again, to feel water, albeit murky water, touch his lips, but he remembered that scenarios had been forced into his mind again and again. He had been forced to murder his brother so many times and in the most horrible ways imaginable he had stopped feeling, but what was still there was the underlying feeling that everything around him had been orchestrated.

"In a Land Rover," she replied, "facing forward, position; up."

Loki chanced a tiny smile. It had been so long since he had heard such simple humor. It reminded him of a time, a very long time ago.

"We're actually heading to Pine Gap," she answered, "It's a communications outpost, but our destination is actually under it," Anna was being serious now, "you're from out of town, so we have to keep you somewhere safe and . . . out of the way until we figure out what is going on."

"I still do not understand where we are."

Anna smiled, "we're in Australia. Earth."

Loki sighed, "fantastic, the only corner of the universe where the stupid are considered intelligent."


	3. Chapter 3

*2* Fates

The humans believed that Frigga the Queen of Asgard knew many fates, although she would tell no fortunes. That was correct, but the reason that was correct was that she believed telling people their fates in some ways cheapened their future, as well as her own standing as Queen.

She knew that Loki was alive, and that he was planning something. She reached through the stars and intruded onto his mind, what she sensed was fear, and the longing to escape from the pain that had lasted so long and was so constant, but she also sensed something else. He had his eye on a scepter, one which possessed a Soul Stone in its blade, a beautiful weapon endowed with unfathomable power, a galaxy that had collapsed into singularity. She heard her son think, and he thought that if he could get the scepter away from here and open a portal, he could both escape and prevent his master from destroying the galaxy.

Bruce White was once a regular scientist working for some chemical manufacturing plant. He was a qualified chemical engineer, and had worked previously in the food and the explosives industries. Right now he was doing working closely with bioengineers within the CSIRO to create vaccines. It was slightly safer than what he had been doing.

What he had been doing was gravimetric analysis of certain compounds in a lab. He found himself fuming over some of the lab practices there and had brought it up with Management. They told him to shut up or lose his job. It was not a week after this decision that some idiot who had stored a 24 gallon drum of benzene next to the same amount of acetone. One of the drums was leaking, one was being used at the time and there was an explosion. Bruce had been severely injured while pulling his lame-brained colleagues out of the inferno.

He was treated in the emergency ward for third degree burns over most of his body, and when the doctors unwrapped the bandages three weeks later, he didn't even have a scar. S.H.I.E.L.D had kept a close watch on him after that, but instead of running away to Cambodia, he had decided to make good of his expertise and try to find a cure for cancer.

Right now, S.H.I.E.L.D had called him in. seeing a real life alien was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Perhaps this alien would be able to provide a cure for cancer.

He watched the alien pace back and forth in the interrogation room, waiting for someone to see him. He kept glancing up at the camera, and when he sat, his eyes bored through the two-way mirror.

"He doesn't look like an alien," Bruce shrugged.

"What did you expect?" Frank replied.

"Do you watch TV?"

"No."

"Then I can't explain what I was expecting," Bruce shrugged. Frank gave him a glare of ice as he stood next to him in full army uniform with a pistol on his hip and slouch hat tucked in under his arm, "are you who they say you are?"

"What do they say I am?" Frank countered with a raised eyebrow.

"They say you're the guy that refused to die in 1915," he answered back, "and that you've refused ever since."

"Believe me, Son; I would like nothing more than to die," he closed his eyes meaningfully and Bruce put a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Mate, didn't mean to hurt you."

Frank glanced at him, "I am who they say," he said sagely, "but what I would like to know is how you got a hold of that information."

"I traced you," Bruce replied, "at first, it seemed like the Corporal was a title passed down from father to son, but the first- I mean, you- you never had kids."

Frank smiled a slow, sad smile.

Anna glared at her prisoner from across the table, unspeaking, just staring, and making him feel very uncomfortable. Her male friend was watching them both carefully too, but he felt many more eyes on him.

He had both seen and experienced this technique, the Merciless Silence. They believed that he could be the precursor to an invasion, and for all he knew, they had a right to believe that.

The silence would break soon. He could smell the tension, if he had a knife; he could cut it in two.

Anna narrowed her dark eyes at him as she stood, "why are you here?"

"I have told you . . ."

"You level a city in America then show up here?" Anna questioned with a quirk of her brow, "If you wanted to gloat, you would have gone there, and after a year?" She leaned over his shoulder, "you're lying."

Loki narrowed his eyes too, "you're good," he said bluntly, "but people stronger and more tactful than yourself have tried and failed to break me, no pathetic mortal wench could ever hope to gain anything useful from me."

She was silent; instead she reached for his hand on the table delicately and squeezed the cut on the top of his hand. He winced.

"Do I have to use the same . . . crude, yet highly effective methods on you that your last 'person stronger and more tactful' tried on you?" Loki was silent, "I know because it happened to me too. If you tell me what my planet can expect in terms of firepower, technology and hostility, we can help you."

He thought of this for a moment, "your race is too primitive to have enemies among the Nine Realms, but I could name a few civilizations that would wish to destroy you out of spite due to my idiotic brother."

"Yes. I have read the case file," Anna remarked, "Coulson never misses a detail, I could use him on my team."

"I will tell you everything I know, if I acquire one thing from your people," Loki told her.

"And what is that?"

"Permanent asylum and to be hidden from my enemy."

Anna paused to think about this, "Depends. What about your enemy?"

"he knows that this world is far too primitive for me to remain on," he explained, "and he already suspects that I shall go home, for I have planted clues to my_ fake_ whereabouts."

Anna smiled, "I have to talk to my boss, but I'll see what I can do."

The southern hemisphere S.H.I.E.L.D office was fairly inconsequential and out-of-the-way for anyone to stand up and take notice, not even the northern hemisphere dudes led by Nick Fury. Since it was thought that south S.H.I.E.L.D was basically a few agents running out of a tent in the middle of the outback, it didn't get the funding or attention that it needed, but the agents did get a freer range, including the right to wear their street clothes to work rather than wear the dorky uniforms that they had up North.

Kate Johnson sat in military apparel. Being a full bird colonel gave her the right to wear the formal khaki garb and the brass all over her. She had a long military heritage going back to the Great War, and she was damn proud of it. Kate was a tall redhead with a heart of gold. She was cold and hard, however she was not yellow like gold unless she got a very bad fake tan.

Anna wore a striking suit to work here, but otherwise she hung around in jeans and boots. She stared Kate down.

"Smith," Kate put down her copy of the Sun Herald and glared at her company over the rims of her reading glasses, "what did you get from the alien?"

"He wants to cut a deal," Anna told her boss, "information for asylum."

Kate arched an eyebrow, "a god wants asylum." She glanced back down at the computer screen which displayed the security camera feed

"He practically begged," Bruce said. He was standing right next to her, him and the Corporal, who nodded silently with his hat under his arm.

"What is he afraid of?"

"Perhaps Asgard," Kate suggested, "he did try to kill his brother, the crown prince of his planet."

Anna shook her head, "did you read Coulson's footnotes?" she asked, "he mentioned that Thor tried to bargain with his brother when he was still wrecking things."

"He still loves his brother," Frank concluded, "I can relate."

"From what I saw, it wasn't Asgard that bothers him," Bruce sat down on the end of the desk, crossing his arms, "he thinks we're primitive. He wants to go home even though he hasn't been treated too well, but cant. No, he's afraid of something else, something worse than his family."

Kate thought, "Okay, but I will also need to have a chat with our American counterparts. He is still their wanted criminal, and they have more resources than us," she spun in her desk chair, "in the meantime, Bruce, take the spear, run some tests on it, find out if it's one of these technologically advanced weapons that our alien friend mentioned. Frank, make sure Bruce doesn't hurt himself. Get word to Felix, he's guarding our pet while we wait for the Americans to reply."

"And me, Boss?" Anna asked.

"That kid's hurt," Kate told her, "break through to him and find out what he's so afraid of."

Anna nodded. She knew that she wasn't going to like what she was about to hear.


End file.
